You're weak and a fool.

I'm not entirely certain someone who asks a question quite as profoundly obvious as yours has any right to pass judgement of any kind. And your tanking friend might have luck finding a good willpower shield as a quest reward (that's where my assassin got a majority of his).

I could only get behind this under the sole condition that absolutely no (and that means zero exceptions) gameplay changes would be made to any classes, abilities, crew skills, etc due to possible imbalance in this kind of arena.

The reusable ones are your "reward" for leveling the profession up. The reusable stims, adrenals, and medpacks are one of the reasons biochem is so strong right now.

That's definitely true. I wonder if they always had a plan for how a light saber affected its target from the get go, or if things kinda fell into place

From what I understand, the reason we don't have gory splashy light sabers is the same reason the galaxy's worst insult is calling someone "scum:" the series has always tried to stay away from strong language and over the top violence. In the event someone is dismembered, the wound is generally cauterized and doesn't really bleed (I think the giant ice monster thing on Hoth is the only one that bleeds).

I use cover fairly often while healing, especially if a pull gets sloppy or a mob is on me. I can generally use cover to soak a fair amount of damage if you time when to pop up and throw heals around.

As a low level scoundrel you're still a mutt. You have a couple nice melee abilities but not enough to be using them alone. Don't forget you have charged blast as an energy dump, grenades, auto attack shots you can mix in with pistol whip. Worst case scenario you can still pop behind cover until you round out your abilities.